When University of Maryland student Yang Shuping approached the lectern at her graduation ceremony on Sunday, she was wide-eyed and grinning.

Standing on her toes to reach the microphone as her introducer pointed out her mother in the crowd waving a bunch of red roses, Yang had no inkling of the firestorm she was about to unleash.

After adjusting the microphone she began simply. "People often ask me why did you come to the University of Maryland. I always answer, 'fresh air'."

Yang recalled stepping off the plane from China at Dulles Airport, prepared to don one of her five face masks but realising she didn't need it. The air was "so sweet and fresh and utterly luxurious". Not so in her hometown of Kunming, in China's southwest, she explained. There she had to wear a mask or risk becoming ill from the pollution. She then went on to praise "the fresh air of free speech".

"No more difficult breathing, no more suppression," she said.

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And she concluded: "Democracy and freedom are the fresh air that is worth fighting for."

Her eight-minute address has since been viewed more than 30 million times, attracting sharp criticism both in China and from other overseas Chinese students. They accuse Yang of misrepresenting and shaming her country.

A video campaign to promote the hometowns of overseas Chinese students, replete with pictures of their blue skies, was launched in response, backed by the Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA), an organisation with branches at universities around the world generally loyal to the Communist Party.

Such was was the ferocity of the reaction, the University of Maryland was forced to publicly defend Yang, a psychology and theatre graduate. It urged people "to demonstrate tolerance when faced with views with which we may disagree".

Yang, meanwhile, issued an apology, insisting she "was just sharing my experience as an international student in the US with no intention to deny or belittle my country or my hometown".

Even the foreign ministry made comments on the controversy. Asked about the speech, spokesman Lu Kang said on Wednesday: "I think many netizens believe that every country has what it takes pride in, while it may also encounter some problems in its course of development.

"When a citizen makes remarks on his or her own country, regardless of the occasion and the way, others can easily sense the feelings he or she shows towards the motherland."

There are mixed views about what lies behind the backlash. One Beijing-based analyst said this was a good illustration of China's control over the internet. He believes supportive comments for Yang would have been censored while criticism of her speech was widely circulated as a warning to other potential ideological dissenters considering speaking out. The organised campaign of the student's association also demonstrates China's soft power apparatus in motion.

At the same time, there were genuine expressions of dismay at the speech from Chinese people wanting to show their best side to the world. The whole controversy has reignited debate about whether nationalism is on the rise in China.

A paper released earlier this year by Harvard University Professor of Government, Alastair Iain Johnston, suggests contrary to popular opinion, nationalism is not rising in China.

The survey asked people in Beijing whether they agreed with the following three statements: "They would prefer to be a citizen of China more than any other country in the world. China is a better country than most. People should support their government even when it is wrong."

It found those "strongly agreeing" with the first and third statements dropped significantly between 2002 and 2015. However, support for the second statement - China being a better country than most - did increase and that appears to fit with people disliking Yang's unfavourable comparison between China and the US.

The issue for China is that while some may consider the response to Yang's speech a domestic public relations coup as netizens rushed to the country's defence, hypersensitivity to public criticism also serves to highlight a growing intolerance of dissenting views.